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Sports

Germantown Too Much for Bay Boys

Win streak snapped at 10 as Dukes struggle to keep up with red-hot Warhawks.

The Whitefish Bay boys basketball team hadn’t lost a game since Dec. 14 against powerhouse Germantown.

Since then, the team had rattled off 10 straight wins, which, according to head coach Kevin Lazovik, was a result of the team playing tough, physical, team defense.

On Tuesday night that defense never had a chance.

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Germantown fired out of the gates after an 11-day layoff and jumped out to a 20-2 lead. Before the Dukes knew what hit them, Germantown stormed to a comfortable 76-62 victory.

“We tried to simulate (Germantown’s) speed and pressure in practice, and obviously that didn’t prepare us enough, and I didn’t do a good enough job having us prepared for that,” Lazovik said.

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“I don’t think (the guys were more nervous) than any of our previous games. I think we just started playing their pace of basketball early, and that created a problem for us.”

The game was over almost as soon as it started, as the Warhawks applied pressure, forced countless turnovers and made nearly all of their attempted shots early on en route to a 20-2 lead just 4:59 into the game.

With 1:59 left in the first quarter and already down 18, Lazovik put all his chips on the floor as senior center Jamie Schneck re-entered the game, having already picked up three fouls.

The gamble paid off for the Dukes – for a little while at least.

A layup by Schneck capped a 15-6 run for Bay (11-6 overall, 7-3 North Shore) to draw the lead to just eight at 26-18 with just over four minutes left in the first half. The Warhawks responded with another impressive run of their own, scoring 16 of the next 18 points to lead 42-22 at the half.

“That’s the problem with Germantown," Lazovik said. "If you don’t keep making baskets, you can cut leads and things like that, and before you know it the lead is back up again, because they have a lot of shooters and they kept making shots.”

For Germantown (16-1, 9-0 NSC), it was all about their bench. The Warhawks constantly rotated fresh bodies onto the court, and that deep bench is one area where Germantown has a clear advantage over Bay.

“We’d like to play 10, 11, 12 (players), but I usually go seven or eight deep,” Germantown head coach Steve Showalter said. “I think there was two minutes left in the first half when both of their bigs (Schneck and Ron Patten) went to the bench and I thought, ‘OK, now’s the time to get these guys in there and get two good minutes of playing time and hopefully keep the score what it is.’”

After halftime, the lead just kept growing for Germantown as they fed the ball down low to 6’8” sophomore Luke Fischer. He hit shot after shot with Schneck playing more hesitantly with foul trouble. That stretched the lead to 29 with two minutes left in the third.

The Dukes gained some ground in the fourth as they were sent to the free-throw line nine times in the final quarter, but ultimately they never were able to bring it close.

For Bay, it was a disappointing loss as their win streak was snapped at 10. A win over Germantown would have brought them within one game of the conference lead with five games left on the schedule.

“We thought we had a real shot, but the game of basketball is funny like that,” Lazovik said. “You can be on a roll and before you know it, you have a team put yourself in your place.”

Patten and Schneck led the way for Bay with 20 and 19, respectively, while five players scored in double figures for the Warhawks.

The Dukes will try to rebound on Friday as they travel to Grafton, while Germantown will look to keep its No. 2 seed in the state as they play host to Cedarburg.

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